Due to the growing demand for renewable energy sources (“green energy”), the manufacture of photovoltaic devices has steadily increased. Photovoltaic devices convert light energy to electricity. Through the photovoltaic effect, photovoltaic devices can absorb light (e.g., infrared, visible, ultraviolet), and photons of light can knock electrons to a higher energy state and generate electricity. One type of photovoltaic device is a solar panel. For example, solar panels can be used as power generators for buildings as well as consumable electronic devices, such as mobile phones, mp3 players, notebook computers, etc.
Many commercially available photovoltaic devices for consumable electronic devices are expensive, for example, due to high production costs. One type of photovoltaic device is a wafer-based silicon cell. Wafer-based cells tend to be expensive, due at least in part to expensive production costs, yet these cells exhibit a relatively low (e.g., approximately 11-13 percent) efficiency. Another type of photovoltaic device is a hybrid semiconducting device, such as power plastic devices (e.g., a photovoltaic device on a plastic substrate) formed through printing of polymers. This hybrid device is less expensive to produce, but exhibits a lower efficiency (e.g., approximately 3.5 percent). The highest efficiency that has been reported for printable solar cells is only 5 percent. In this regard, manufacturing and use of conventional photovoltaic devices suffer from at least the above-identified drawbacks of inefficiency and high production costs.
The above-described deficiencies of today's photovoltaic devices, systems and methods are merely intended to provide an overview of some of the problems of conventional devices, systems and methods, and are not intended to be exhaustive. Other problems with the state of the art and corresponding benefits of some of the various non-limiting embodiments may become further apparent upon review of the following detailed description.